Tag Archives: Culture

How Do You Get Doer/Sellers to Sell? Four Recommendations

Situation: A company has a geographical sales and service organization. Much of the sales effort comes from the consulting reputation of the managing director of each geographical unit, but he directors’ core values usually favor consulting over meeting sales plans. How do we get these directors to meet sales goals? How do you get doer/sellers to sell?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One company shared their experience turning around a consulting organization with no sales culture. This was a 5-year process. It started with a leader who sells successfully and teaches by example. As the company made the transition, they selected new hires for sales skills to complement their consulting skills. This facilitated their transition to a strong sales culture.
  • Another CEO pointed out that you need to commit to build a sales culture. Moving to an account manager team versus an engineering/professional team is a big shift. It took time and patience. Hire effective sales people to jump-start the process. Most of the successful seller/doers will be new hires. Revise the reward and recognition structure around the new sales objectives. Make rainmakers the best paid people. This will bring others out of the woodwork.
  • A third CEO recommended biasing sales compensation for doer/sellers toward variable compensation. Allow successful individuals to make over $200K per year. Consider a 3-year phase-in by not increasing base pay through raises. More than make up the difference in available variable pay. This will give directors more incentive to hit their sales numbers
  • This is a difficult change in both sales leadership and culture. It may require significant changes in leadership within the company.

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How Do You Find A-Players? Six Strategies

Situation: An early stage company will be staffing-up over the next year. In the past the CEO has recruited individuals with big company experience and solid resumes, only to find that they had difficulty transitioning to the hands-on responsibility of a small company. How do you find candidates who are highly experienced but who can also excel in a small company environment? How do you find A-players?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The best candidates are not in the job-search pool. They are currently working but open to a change with new challenges. Some will wish to return to a more hands-on situation.
  • Let people know that you are looking for “the best” and have a great opportunity. Create some buzz. Go to your network and ask, “who do you know?” Don’t be shy!
  • Look for achievers – individuals with proven performance in companies of the size that you plan to be in 12-18 months and who are interested in the excitement of building that company. Check their references carefully.
  • What can the company do now, while seeking the right people? Use contractors and consultants. These people are more entrepreneurial, self-starting, and self-accountable. Monitor their work. If they are good, add them to your team as permanent employees.
  • Develop a milestone-based personnel plan as part of your business plan. For example when we hit Milestone A, we will need an operations manager. When we hit Milestone B, we will need channel or market development expertise.
  • Conduct case studies of how other companies in your or similar spaces have facilitated their scale-ups. What worked? What didn’t? Why?

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How Do You Scale Up a Product That Is Taking off! Four Points

Situation: Demand for a product produced by a company has increased dramatically. The CEO realizes that they need to scale up production quickly to meet this unexpected demand. The company is small and the CEO wants advice as to how his company can accomplish this without killing the product. How do you scale up a product that is taking off?
Advice from the CEOs:
• This represents a major change of both mentality and culture. Essentially, the company needs to move from a “handmade” process to a commodity volume process. This may also mean moving from low volume/high margin production to high volume/lower margin production. This shift will significantly change the company.
• If there is high confidence that the company will land a contract for long-term production consider establishing high volume production at a new site. Rent or lease another facility. Alongside this hire a set of experienced people who understand the challenges of scaling up rapidly. Consider giving this facility a new name to suit the new team. This will help to establish a new culture suitable to the new opportunity.
• While negotiating a lease, ask for an option for additional space to be included in the lease. If things don’t pan out, look at this new space as the eventual location for your existing team.
• Two other options to consider: (1) Outsourcing to a 3rd party manufacturer. This is an option unless the company is an OEM outsourced producer itself. However, be careful – you could be telling your customer that they could go directly to your OEM source at a lower price. (2) Establishing an overseas production capability – one where you own the facility and manage quality control. This will be a challenge if the customer wants to specify “Made in US”, or where quality concerns are essential.

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How Do You Boost Financial Understanding Within the Team? Five Points

Situation: A CEO is concerned that her team doesn’t appreciate the financial implication of their decisions on the company. This applies to both day-to-day decisions and strategic decisions that team leaders make. What can be done to better connect them and their decisions to the bottom line? How do you boost financial understanding within the team?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Go down the management levels from top to bottom and take the time to explain, in understandable terms, the company’s financial objectives, why they are important, how these are measured, how managers’ day to day decisions impact company performance, and the financial consequences of those decisions.
• Give employees a stake in company performance! For some this may be an ownership stake, for others it could be linking financial performance to their compensation and promotion track.
• The objective is for everyone to view the company as “ours”. This is a critical culture shift from the usual view in terms of “me vs. them”
• Work with the team to establish understandable and trackable formulas for profitable performance.
• Establish meaningful rewards for meeting the company’s plan and financial targets. When employees see a direct link between company financial performance and their paychecks they will pay attention.

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How Do You Find and Keep Good People? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A company needs to both find and retain good people to continue its profitable growth. What experience can the group share to assist the CEO in his efforts to address these needs? How do you find and keep good people?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Before starting the recruitment process create specific position profiles including desired skill sets, qualifications, and functional responsibilities.
• Set up a recruiting team to develop current and future employees and candidates. Offer scholarships to new and existing associates to continue their education.
• Once a new person is hired, create a first 90 day skill set plan. Include challenges that they have to pass, as well as scheduled training and support.
• The first 90 days is critical. If someone slips up during the first 90 days it is taken very seriously as a sign or more to come.
• Profile and hire attitudes as well as focusing on skill sets. Lots of people have skills. It is those employees who possess both the right attitude and right skills who make great hires and who will stay with the company.
• Share the company’s culture and goals. Let candidates and new hires know how they fit into both.
• To boost retention, focus on charities that employees care about. Encourage employees to participate in worthy causes and give them time to support these charities.

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How Do You Hire Good Salespeople? Eight Points

Situation: A CEO struggles with finding competent sales people. Issues include both finding these people, evaluating their skills, and assuring that they fit with the culture of his company. What techniques do others employ to find good candidates? How do you hire good salespeople?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Hiring salespeople is one of the most important jobs a CEO has, yet is paid the least attention. In a small company the CEO is deeply involved in the process, while in larger companies the CEO’s role is assuring that those responsible for selection and hiring are bringing in quality individuals. In either case the important points for the CEO to oversee are as follows:
• Determine what you want the person to do. What skills do they need? How much can you pay? Is that competitive with the market?
• Advertise – use internet portals, print media and referrals. Beyond this, one of the most successful means of recruiting is to hire individuals who have proven their skills in other companies and who are known to and respected by your existing salespeople.
• Review resumes for basic qualifications and weed out all that do not meet those qualifications.
• Test potential hires. There are a number of good tests including: DISC, Meyers-Briggs and Identity Compass.
• Bring candidates in for interview. See how they react to pressure. Are they a good match for the company culture? What is their personality like? Are they comfortable with the company’s philosophy, size, reputation, products and services, and so on?
• Check references and contact their current customers to gather their impressions of the candidate’s capabilities.
• Remember that past performance does not guarantee future results – particularly if there is a significant change in what is being sold.

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How Do You Frame a Make Versus Buy Decision? Two Thoughts

Situation: A CEO is facing a decision whether to make or buy key technology frequently used by the company. What have others done when faced by similar decisions? What are the most important factors that impacted those decisions? How do you frame a make versus buy decision?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • In considering either option evaluate the opportunity by asking whether the technology:
    • Complements the company’s core strategic focus – the company’s “Main Thing” – what you are passionate about, what drives your key economic denominator, and what can you be best at in your market.
    • Supports the key economic denominator – the single factor that has the greatest impact on the company’s profitability and growth.
    • Complements the best use of the company’s critical resources.
    • Protects the company’s process secrets.
    • Feeds your passion as CEO.
  • In evaluating a buy decision look at the strengths of the people who come along with the opportunity.
    • Do they complement the company’s strengths or not?
    • Will they fit the company’s ecology and culture?

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How Do You Use Focus and Communication to Strengthen Your Leadership? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is curious about how others have strengthened their leadership skills over time. From discussions with other CEOs she has gathered that focus and communication are important strengths to build. How do you use focus and communication to strengthen your leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Often the process is more important than the actual decision because the process frames how the decision is made.
    • If the process is open to new ideas and approaches, and these are welcomed in the discussion, this can generate both more creative decisions as well as increased buy-in to the ultimate decision being made.
  • One CEO finds that his company is always focused on the outcome. However, he has grown to understand that it is important to frame the decision-making process around your values.
    • Value-based decisions not only generate increased buy-in by all involved, but they strengthen the sense of company culture and values.
  • Another CEO was faced with a personnel issue. She found that by analyzing past decision-making processes company leadership was able to identify a previously unrecognized factors and processes that fed the personnel issue.
    • By addressing the process, the company was able to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of all.

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How Do You Focus Your Team? Six Points

Situation: Several CEOs asked how others have had success improving company performance and is interested in how they focused their teams. How do you focus your team?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Important tasks for any company are to validate the value proposition, technology, target customer, and the rate of market expansion, and minimize risk and liability. This should be a regular company exercise – not a one-time event.
  • Assuming that a company has goals and people who can align with and achieve them, a company needs a vision – the broader strategic picture of where they are going. Often some of the best ideas come from line staff who are enabled by their company’s culture.
  • It is critical that companies are able to quickly identify problems and have systems in place to drive problem resolution. The minigame technique is very useful in these cases.
  • Companies should have a plan for transitioning employees into new roles as the company grows. The key is clear identification of the individual’s role within the company, and how that role compliments achievement of company objectives.
  • If a company wants to grow sales from, say, $20 to $60 million, it will need a professional sales leader. In addition, growth may require a change in company culture from engineering and development centric to sales centric.
  • A significant challenge is determining how to define corporate success. Much depends upon the questions asked. The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack provides guidelines and tools for assessing options. Anyone starting or growing a business should look at this book.

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How Do You Interview for New Hires and Promotions? Part 2, Eight Points

Situation: A CEO seeks advice on interviewing both for new hires and promotions. What advice and guidelines do others suggest to improve interviews? How do you interview for new hires and promotions?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Use an interview process that is consistent with the company’s plan and culture.
    • Start with the company’s mission statement.
    • Next develop the value system.
    • Draft a hiring plan that is consistent with the company’s mission and values and develop a process to support this.
  • Monitor the process over time and improve it through experience.
  • Assure that position descriptions reflect the individual(s) that the company wants to hire.
  • Before starting the hiring process, ask “What problem am I solving?” The answer will help to define the talents and attitudes desired in candidates.
  • Utilize “listening with a plan”.
    • Be clear on how the person being interviewed is delivering their message. Is their language positive, proactive, energized, or lethargic? Do they take responsibility for their own actions? Do they look at positive aspects of the company they work for and the people they work with? The objective is to make sure that the individuals sought for the job display these characteristics.
  • Hire for growth potential, not just to fill the current slot.
  • Hire consistent with the values and culture that the company wants to create and foster.
  • Hire to skills needed rather than value to yourself and the firm.
    • Don’t just hire on cultural aspects. Evaluate and check the skill set against what this person is supposed to accomplish. Getting the skills set right is just as important as getting the culture right.

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